Time’s Jodie Whittaker reveals how ‘shaking and crying’ for hours in gripping new BBC drama took its toll
TIME actress Jodie Whittaker has opened up on the toll filming the new series of the BBC drama took on her.
The second series of the show follows a brand new story and sees Jodie starring in the role of Orla O’Riordan.
She co-stars alongside an ensemble cast including TV legend and Happy Valley star Siobhan Finneran, Tamara Lawrance and Bella Ramsey.
Jodie has admitted that filming the tough scenes for the programme required her to be “shaking and crying” whilst around child actors as young as eight.
Opening up on the emotional show, Jodie said: “The physical thing of shaking and crying or getting yourself into a very heightened state, it
stays within you.
“It’s difficult as well when you are filming with little beings. Orla has scenes with her children who are 8, 9 and 12/13.
“So the whole thing of that being real, to have two little faces kind of
looking at you and these wonderful little actors… It can be one eighth of a page in the script and it can have only taken an hour out of your day to shoot that, but the residual effect on you lasts for
quite a while.
“And it’s really important to experience that because that is what some people’s life is and we’re lucky this is not happening to us, but we’re very aware that it is happening to a lot of people.”
As the new series opens, Orla finds herself behind bars as she begins her jail stint.
In the first episode, she is seen fighting to keep her children out of care and desperately tries to get her life back on track.
Her relationships with fellow inmates Kelsey and Abi are followed as she tries to mend herself back up which could include taking drastic and extreme action.
Teasing what is to come for her complex character, Jodie said: “Orla is a single mother of three and we meet her in a stereotypical domestic scenario that any mother can appreciate where you’re just trying to get your kids ready for school.
“The beauty of Helen and Jimmy’s writing is that the audience isn’t completely spoon-fed every scene.
“So you then have a very hard cut with them realising that she’s gone to court and is then sent down for six months.
“In law there are very clear lines on what is legal and what is not legal – but then there are very blurred lines of what warrants prison sentences and what warrants fines. In Orla’s situation, the crime doesn’t necessarily merit the sentence.”
Screenwriter Jimmy McGovern penned Time season one with him bringing on board Helen Black, writer of the BAFTA-nominated Life and Death in the Warehouse, to write season two.
The second outing of the show is comprised of three one-hour-long episodes and will be directed by Andrea Harkin, the director behind The Confessions of Frannie Langton and The Trial Of Christine Keeler.
Time series two begins Sunday 29 October at 9pm on BBC One, with all episodes then available immediately on BBC iPlayer.